Plant litter decomposition is a critical step in the formation of soil organic matter, the mineralization of organic nutrients, and the carbon balance in terrestrial ecosystems. Biotic decomposition in mesic ecosystems is generally negatively correlated with the concentration of lignin, a group of complex aromatic polymers present in plant cell walls that is recalcitrant to enzymatic degradatio...

Human Cdc14A is an evolutionary conserved dual-specificity protein phosphatase that reverses the modifications effected by cyclin-dependent kinases and plays an important role in centrosome duplication and mitotic regulation. Few substrates of Cdc14A have been identified, some of them with homologues in yeast that, in turn, are substrates of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae Cdc14 homologue, a prote...

The plasma membrane monoamine transporter (PMAT) belongs to the equilibrative nucleoside transporter family (solute carrier 29) and was alternatively named equilibrative nucleoside transporter 4. Previous studies from our laboratory characterized PMAT as a polyspecific organic cation transporter that minimally interacts with nucleosides. Recently, PMAT-mediated uptake of adenosine (a purine nuc...

Although the DNA methyltransferase 2 family is highly conserved during evolution and recent reports suggested a dual specificity with stronger activity on transfer RNA (tRNA) than DNA substrates, the biological function is still obscure. We show that the Dictyostelium discoideum Dnmt2-homologue DnmA is an active tRNA methyltransferase that modifies C38 in tRNA(Asp(GUC)) in vitro and in vivo. By...

Chemical mechanical polished ~CMP! ~100! GaSb substrates were processed using gas cluster ion beams ~GCIB! to improve surface smoothness, reduce subsurface damage, and produce a thermally desorbable oxide layer for molecular-beam epitaxy ~MBE! overgrowth. In this article, we report the growth of GaSb/AlGaSb epilayers on GCIB processed GaSb substrates. The substrates were processed using either ...

Sporadic Alzheimer's disease (sAD) has not been explained by any current theories, so new hypotheses are urgently needed. We proposed that "energy and Ca(2+) signaling deficits" are perhaps the earliest modifiable defects in brain aging underlying memory decline and tau deposits (by means of inactivating Ca(2+)-dependent protease calpain). Consistent with this hypothesis, we now notice that at ...

We present systematic experiments of the rupture and dewetting of thin films of a nonvolatile polar liquid on partially wetting substrates due to a moving slot jet, which impinges at normal incidence. The relative motion was provided by a custom-built spin coater with a bidirectionally accessible axis of rotation that enabled us to measure film thickness profiles in situ as a function of substr...

The DNA Damage Response (DDR) pathway represents a signalling mechanism that is activated in eukaryotic cells following DNA damage and comprises of proteins involved in DNA damage detection, DNA repair, cell cycle arrest and apoptosis. This pathway consists of an intricate network of signalling interactions driving the cellular ability to recognise DNA damage and recruit specialised proteins to...

A dual plasmid system was used to examine the protein and acyl-CoA specificities of Saccharomyces cerevisiae myristoyl-CoA:protein N-myristoyltransferase (NMT) by co-expressing it in Escherichia coli with each of four homologous alpha subunits of the signal-transducing, heterotrimeric G proteins. Exogenous [3H]myristate was incorporated into rat Gi alpha 1 and rat Go alpha but not into bovine G...

To improve the enzymatic hydrolysis (saccharification) of lignocellulosic biomass by Trichoderma reesei, a set of genes encoding putative polysaccharide-degrading enzymes were selected from the coprophilic fungus Podospora anserina using comparative genomics. Five hemicellulase-encoding genes were successfully cloned and expressed as secreted functional proteins in the yeast Pichia pastoris. Th...